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Holy Mary! But you are right. You always are. And so clever! I will go. Sure, sure. Come now, or they will think we conspire." Roldan dismounted, and was warmly greeted by the family. The girls rose and courtesied, blushing with the coquetry of their race. Roldan cared little for girls at any time, and to-night was doubly abstracted, his ear straining at every distant hoof-beat.

Nevertheless he flew forward like the wind. Presently he fell to listening. A certain hoof-beat in the rear was growing more distinct. A bitter thought flashed through his mind. He looked back. Over the hill appeared the foremost of his pursuers. It was the blacksmith, mounted on the fleetest horse in the county Jeff's OWN horse Rabbit! But there are compensations in all new trials.

She turned to him as she heard the hoof-beat on the turf, and smiled. "Can we wait and hear that hymn through?" "Ay. Sing it." She looked suddenly in his face. Something in the very tone in which he spoke startled her, something deeper, more fervent, than she had ever heard before, and the expression in the steady, deep-blue eyes was another revelation.

As the people poured out through the open doors the unceasing roar of the great city's life swept in drowning the soft strains of the organ the jar and whir of wheels, the wheeze of brakes, the tremor of machinery, the rumble of cab, the clatter of hoof-beat, the cry of child and hackman, the haunting murmur of millions like the moan of the sea borne on breezes winged with the odours of saloon and kitchen, stable and sewer the crash of a storm of brute forces on the senses, tearing the nerves, crushing the spirit, bruising the soul, and strangling the memory of a sane life.

Weary stopped to wind his horse and to listen, but not a hoof-beat came to guide him in his search. He leaned and shifted the medicine case a bit to ease his bruised leg, and wished he might unlock the healing mysteries and the magic stored within. It seemed to him a cruel world and unjust that knowledge must be gleaned slowly, laboriously, while men died miserably for want of it.

Yet with all the care bestowed upon him the poor horse grieved for his mate, and never did hoof-beat fall upon the ground without his questioning neigh. Peggy visited him every day and was touched by his response to her petting; it showed what Nelly had done for him. But she was quick to understand the poor creature's nervous watching for his lost mate, and evident loneliness.

So now I was close to the three-farm cluster. I listened intently for the horses' thump. Yes, there was that muffled hoof-beat again I was on the last grade that led to the angling road across the corner of the marsh. Truly, this was very much like lying down in the sleeping-car of an overland train.

No sound but the whir of wings as great tropic insects flitted through the dark with flashes of fire; or the clank of a soldier unstrapping haversack to steel courage by a drink of grog! An hour passed! Two hours before the eager ears pressed to earth detected a padded hoof-beat over grass. Then a bell tinkled, as the leader of the pack came in sight.

In the joy of their faces, the steady hoof-beat of their big feet on the pavement and the stalwart pride with which they marched, one saw the secret of their victory. They were in dead earnest. Politics was the breath they breathed and the blood that fed their hearts. King felt the contagion of their loyalty and enthusiasm, and his inaugural address was inspired and inspiring.

Between where the road emerged from the hummock and the gate to Nancy was a stretch of old corduroy road over a marshy strip. Elsewhere a horse's hoofs sank into sand. Willy Leroy would ride out, if he came, probably on Mr. Jonas's mare. The girl sat, all else abeyant, listening. She heard the first hoof-beat, the first clattering thud on wood. Her hand slipped from the Captain's; she sat still.